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Planning panel deadlocks on Graves' rezoning

Courtesy of Beaufort CountyThese maps show current and proposed zoning districts under consideration for seven Pepper Hall Plantation tracts.

Courtesy of Beaufort CountyThese maps show current and the proposed "future land use" categories under consideration for seven Pepper Hall Plantation tracts. The proposed land use guideline changes are tied to a county rezoning application.

BEAUFORT — A rare tie vote means a development effort for 143 rural acres by the Okatie River has no Planning Commission recommendation.

That leaves the Beaufort County Council, which decides zoning issues, with no guidance from the advisory panel it appointed.

The commission deadlocked Monday night on applications by Robert, John and Paul Graves to change rural zoning classifications for seven tracts from north of U.S. 278 and between the Okatie River and Graves Road. The area is known as Pepper Hall Plantation.

They are seeking “Commercial Regional” zoning — the county’s most intense commercial zoning category — for about 64 acres fronting U.S. 278. They propose “Suburban” zoning for the balance.

Votes were 4-4, with one absent, on motions for approval of two-related applications. Chairman Jim Hicks said Commissioner Mary Rivers LeGree, of St. Helena Island, had been in a wreck and was unable to attend.

Hicks said it was only the second deadlock on a zoning matter in his 15 years on the commission.

“It means we are incapable of making a decision.... It means that you feel strongly enough that you desire that council just look at it,” Hicks said after the votes.

Vice Chairman Robert Semmler, of St. Helena Island, made both motions. He first moved for approval of request to change the Future Land Use Map as would be required to allow the proposed zoning changes. He then moved for the applicant’s proposed zoning changes.

Joining Semmler in approval votes were Commissioners Charles Brown, of Seabrook; Ronald Petit, of Beaufort, and Parker Sutler, of Okatie.

Opposition came from commissioners Hicks, of Lady’s Island; John Thomas, of Bluffton; and Diane Chmelik and Edward Riley, both of Okatie.

The next step is for a review by the County Council Natural Resources Committee at its 2 p.m. March 5 meeting for a recommendation to the full council.

Applicants seeks land talks

Before the vote, James Scheider Jr., attorney for the applicants, proposed the commission postpone a rezoning vote.

Instead, he asked the panel to recommend the County Council facilitate negotiating land-use deals with the Graves “to find an acceptable means to protect the integrity of the Okatie River, and to do so in the next 30 days and then re-appear before this body.” He said methods could include conservation easements, purchase of development or property rights, or property purchases.

He said the Graves family “is willing to hear any proposal to protect the headwaters of the Okatie.”

For the Coastal Conservation League, Reed Armstrong said he didn’t know if the county’s Rural and Critical Lands Preservation Program could afford Graves deals, “but it certainly would have a strange impact” on the Nov. 6 county land bank referendum. Voters will decide a proposal to allow a 1 mill property tax to raise $20 million to replenish the land bank.

Scheider also said existing “by-right uses” would allow 20 waterfront lots, with only 50 foot setbacks, on septic systems.

Robert Graves speaks

Robert Graves said he and his family also want to protect the Okatie by the land the Graves have owned 136 years.

He said he’s 73, and much has happened in his 50 years in engineering and building around Bluffton and on Hilton Head.

Sea Pines developer “Charles Fraser, a model to all of us, would rise out of his grave if he knew he’d of been denied way back then what we all enjoy today,” Graves said.

“Let’s figure out how to skin the cat.” The idea that development on the 143 acres “is going to wreck this whole system … is hogwash, y’all. We don’t believe that. Let’s get real.”

Catch 22

After the votes, Semmler said it should be possible to protect the environment and allow development, and asked why the Graves hadn’t tried negotiations before.

Scheider said the Graves have approached the Open Land Trust, which administers the county’s land banking program, and “they have essentially said we’ll wait until there’s some action from the county. …

“I hope this action tonight,” he said, “will be an incentive for the appropriate bodies to be ready to sit down and talk with us.”

But Hicks said the Open Land Trust would not negotiate “as long as you have a (rezoning) request in motion. It’s almost like negotiating under the gun.”

Hicks said he had a “grave concern” about allowing regional commercial development outside of Bluffton town limits.

But Semmler, Petit and Brown said the Graves have a right to develop. Semmler said the applicants have said “they would not do anything to sabotage the headwaters of the Okatie River, and you need to take a man at his word at some point.”

County planners back denials

County planning staff again recommended denials, repeating a Jan. 12 report to the south-county subcommittee. Reasons included adding too much traffic to U.S. 278, countering Okatie River cleanup and protection efforts, and going against the Comprehensive Plan adopted in 2011.

For the Graves, private land-use planner Milt Rhodes said their traffic engineer told them U.S. 278 “should be capable of accommodating the development.”

He said the property, which includes livestock pastureland fronting the highway, is high ground, largely cleared and “perfectly suited” for development.